Speaking in Jerusalem
to the annual mission of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish
Organizations, he declared, “I will do everything in my power to ensure the
equality of all streams of Judaism in Israel, in terms of conversion, marriage,
funding and in the eyes of the law.”

He added that he would
“ensure that there will be civil marriage here, too.”

Director of the Reform
Movement in Israel Rabbi Gilad Kariv pointed out as an example one condition stipulating
that Reform rabbis for small communities numbering a maximum of 250 members are
to be funded as part-time employees entitled to half the salary of full-time
rabbis.

Orthodox rabbis are
considered to be full-time employees and receive a full- time salary regardless
of the size of their community.

Kariv said his
objection was that the state was asking for the Reform Movement to pay the
rabbi of such a community as a full-time employee and only then would the state
pay half of his or her salary.

"After
seven years of litigation, the state accepted – albeit with clenched teeth –
the proposal of this esteemed court and agreed to fund the salaries of
non-Orthodox rabbis by way of support tests," the petition states.

"These
tests were meant to create a mechanism for employing Orthodox rabbis in a way
that non-Orthodox rabbis could receive similar conditions. But rather than
properly implementing the ruling, the state has used foot-dragging tactics ...
and in the end published tests that blatantly discriminate against non-Orthodox
rabbis."

The High
Court of Justice ordered the Interior Ministry on Thursday to explain within
four months why the same criteria do not apply to student dormitories and
yeshivas for receiving a municipal tax exemption.

The order
was given in a petition filed about a year ago by eight student associations
and four universities. The petitioners asserted that the criteria set a year
ago for receiving a municipal tax exemption was formulated in such a way that
it favored yeshivas over student dorms.

When
religion slips into power politics, it is religion itself that becomes sullied.
It is not surprising that a high percentage of the Israeli population has little
respect for the Rabbinate. It is not surprising that a very high percentage of
Jews in the Diaspora view the Rabbinate negatively. As symbols of religion, the
Rabbinate and its allies have been remarkable failures. Instead of inspiring
respect and admiration for Judaism and halakha, the “religious establishment”
has generated disdain for—even hatred of—Judaism and halakha. The further it
slips away from the spiritual and compassionate ideals of religion, the further
it removes itself from the goodwill of the Jewish world.

The Israel
Religious Action Center has petitioned the High Court of Justice to grant
citizenship to a 62-year-old African-American convert to Judaism who is being
threatened with deportation by the Interior Ministry.

In recent
years, African-American converts have come under intense scrutiny by Interior
Ministry official. According to sources who have been present at meetings held
between the two sides, the converts are frequently questioned by ministry
officials about their possible connections to the Hebrew Israelites, a
community of African-Americans in Dimona, most of them originally from Chicago,
who maintain they are descendants of the Tribe of Judah but are not recognized
as Jews by the state.

Maxfield
told Haaretz he had absolutely no connection to the community, commonly known
as the Black Hebrews.

The case
Har-Shalom was working that night had bedeviled him for some time. Back in
Jerusalem, he'd been hired by a Russian émigrée who was planning for her
daughter's eventual wedding and needed Har-Shalom for a crucial ingredient --
proof that her child was Jewish.

…
Har-Shalom, who runs a nonprofit detective agency that specializes in sniffing
out long-lost Jewish ancestry. His agency, called Shorashim (Hebrew for
"roots"), is funded in part by the Israeli government. Each year he
takes on roughly 1200 cases that test his fluency in Yiddish and Russian
dialects, his familiarity with czarist and Soviet history, and his patience for
combing through old Soviet archives. He then presents his findings to a
rabbinic court, which almost always accepts his expert opinion about a
citizen's Jewish identity.

“There will not be a
civil war here; 10% of the population cannot threaten 90%,” Lapid said,
referencing threats made by ultra-Orthodox leaders against the possibility of
conscripting yeshiva students into the army.

Rabbi Aharon Leib
Shteinman, the spiritual leader in the ultra-Orthodox world, is reportedly not
opposed to a proposal for increasing haredi enlistment drafted by Professor
Yedidya Stern, a former member of the Knesset’s Plesner Committee, which
deliberated on the issue last summer.

Stern’s proposal would
not impose quotas on the number of ultra-Orthodox men turning 18 who are able
to gain an exemption from military service, but contains both positive and
negative incentives to increase haredi enlistment that the professor believes
would be effective.

The leading haredi
rabbis are unwaveringly opposed to a quota system since it would automatically
prevent men who wish to study in yeshiva from doing so, a point of principle
for the leading rabbis that they will not abandon.

UTJ MK Menahem Eliezer
Moses: “Do you really think you could force 100,000 yeshiva students to serve
in the army?” Moses asked. “Where is there land to build all the prisons for
them? There isn’t even enough land for homes for young couples.” The UTJ MK
also pointed out that government funding for yeshiva students is lower than the
amount spent on prisoners.

"We have not come
here to drive a wedge, but to unite. The rift is already here, we're being torn
apart from each other in schools, in the army, in the work force. It's time to
admit there's a gaping wound in the heart of Israel's society and now is the
time for healing."

Equalizing
the burden is about values. It's about giving Israel's heterogeneous society a
common base that will reduce its polarization and strengthen its fabric. This
will also reduce racism and discrimination in the workforce. National and
military service brings diverse sectors of society closer together, increases
integration, provides professional training and gives those who complete it a
sense of worth.

“The model
presented by Yesh Atid is a model that can’t be implemented by consensus and
without coercing the Haredi population, which is why we cannot adopt it,” he
said. “By contrast, the Kandel outline is one that can be implemented and that
can be promoted to the various factions.”

At the end of the
emergency conference, during which Torah studies were praised and IDF enlistment was cursed, the
Council issued a joint statement: "(The Council) is shaken, scared and
deeply depressed by the wave of incitement by the residents of Israel against
the haredim."

The 2013 elections
may have been determined by one single slogan: “equality of burden” (or, in its
less accurate English rendition, “sharing the burden”). Both Yair Lapid and
Naftali Bennett spearheaded this rallying cry (subsequently echoed with vigor
by the Likud, Labor, Kadima and the Movement), which calls for the full
realization of the principle of universal military or civilian service for all
groups in society. The implementation of this promise is now a key consideration
in the construction of the next government and may very well determine its
composition and direction. This popular cry, however, is populist rather than
substantive: it is misguided, misdirected and fundamentally mistaken.

If a haredi person
joins the army, he still won’t have an equal place in secular society. If he
applies for a position at one of our top universities he will come up against
attitudes such as those mentioned above, and will be judged solely based on the
style of his clothing and his beard. Equality is demanded of the haredi man in
army service, but equality is denied him in many other walks of life in Israel.

While the Chief
Rabbinate must uphold the proper standards of the Halacha, it must also
recognize that it is a people’s institution and that the people in Israel
thirst for tolerance, patience, understanding and diplomacy, particularly from
their religious leadership. Once this is accomplished I believe the rabbinate
will be surprised to find how thirsty the secular population in Israel is for
knowledge, and for enlightenment as well.

Rabbi David Stav: “There must be zero tolerance for any compromise
in Halacha accompanied by 100 percent tolerance for dealing with people
politely and respectfully, reaching out to those who do not know how to turn to
rabbis and representing the rabbinate in a different light.”

[Rabbi David Stav]
would encourage couples to sign prenuptial agreements to ensure wives can
request a divorce, a right not granted to them in the traditional Jewish
marriage contract. He would privatize the kosher certification industry and
make the chief rabbinate its regulator, lowering the soaring prices of kosher
supervision for the food industry. He would make ritual baths more handicapped
accessible, and require ritual circumcisers to refresh their skills in training
classes every two years.

[W]hen I study many of
the recent responsa of the rabbinical courts of the Chief Rabbinate, when I see
how many of the Israeli rabbinical judges rule in accordance with the
stringencies of Rav Elyashiv and refuse to obligate recalcitrant husbands to
grant divorces to their suffering wives, when I watch the emotional torture
(yes, torture) many sincere converts must undergo at the hands of some
insensitive judges blind to the biblical command of loving the stranger, my
heart weeps to think that there might be more compassion on the part of the
secular courts. I write these words with sighs and sobs; and I believe that God
and the Torah are sighing and sobbing as well.

In an op-ed
originally published in Yedioth Ahronoth, IDI Vice President Prof.
Yedidia Z. Stern hails the incoming Knesset as a unique opportunity to change
the nature of the State of Israel so that it is both more Jewish and more
democratic at the same time.

Putting two women in
the committee to appoint judges to religious courts; redefining the Western
Wall’s status under the law; making it accessible to the entire public; and
transparency in the state budget.

Q: Do you think
haredim and Arabs should do military or national service, and if so, how should
the state enforce it?

Everyone must carry
the burden equally.

I don’t see [service]
as a burden; rather, it is a privilege to contribute to Israeli society. Every
citizen of the State of Israel must contribute his part. As someone who sees
the Torah as important, it is sad for me to find that many use Torah studies as
an excuse to get out of serving.

Q: Do you support a
religious-Zionist chief candidate, such as Rabbi David Stav, for the chief
rabbinate?

Haredi parties control
the Chief Rabbinate and Jewish institutions of the state and make the general
public sick of Judaism.

We need to bring
Judaism back to Israelis, and only a Zionist rabbi who is connected to the
entire society should be chosen. Rabbi Stav is a worthy candidate, and I would
be happy to see him as chief rabbi.

The time has come to
deal with the issue of the Jewish character of the State of Israel, and to
regulate the fundamental principles underlying the status-quo in legislation,
now that close to 40 MK's are religiously observant.

Recent surveys conducted by Hiddush, an
organization committed to freedom of religion for Israel, show clearly that the
vast majority of Israelis want “freedom of religion and equality in shouldering
civic burdens, equal military service for all, the implementation of core
curricular studies, civil marriage, public transportation on Shabbat, a
decrease in subsidies for yeshiva students, and action against public
discrimination of women. Instead the public suffers from the government’s
repeated surrender to the ultra-Orthodox parties Shas and United Torah
Judaism.” (Rabbi Uri Regev, President of Hiddush).

Ruth Calderon,
founder of Alma – Home for Hebrew Culture was sworn in as a member of the 19th Knesset.
She posted a really beautiful prayer for the occasion which I have shared below
in Hebrew and with my informal translation beneath it.

Q: In the
same way that you are promoting women’s worship at the Wall, can you identify
with and support, say, Moshe Feiglin and the others who visit the Temple Mount?

Anat
Hoffman: Feiglin and I are in the same business of freedom of conscience and
freedom of worship. That’s all we have in common. But you know what? If all
this gets sorted out and Jews will be allowed to pray on the Temple Mount, I
will fight along with Feiglin for the right of women to pray on the Temple
Mount.

Residents of the mixed
religious/secular neighborhood of Ramat Sharett in Jerusalem are furious over
the municipality’s approval of three yeshivas on the edge of their neighborhood
at last week’s city council meeting.

On Thursday, the
residents will hold a planning meeting with City Councilor Rachel Azaria
(Yerushalmim) to try and submit a petition to the city’s Administrative Court
to stop the yeshiva’s creation.

Fledgling MK Ruth
Calderon of the Yesh Atid party was attacked by Shas chairman Eli Yishai on
Sunday after asking on Facebook if there were efforts under way to change
Israel’s national anthem to make it more inclusive to Arab-Israelis.

Sharansky: “In order
to encourage aliya you must make Diaspora Jews feel closer to Israel. If you
want to stop assimilation you must make people less indifferent to their Jewish
identity and more passionate about their belonging to the Jewish family.”

As a testament to his
multidenominational approach, students of David Hartman from different
movements of Judaism spoke at the funeral about his power and passion as a
teacher and the generation of Jewish leaders he inspired.

Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the
president of the Union for Reform Judaism, spoke about the first class he took
with Hartman at Hebrew University in 1975 – a course on philosophers Baruch
Spinoza, Maimonides and Judah Halevy – that was actually about basketball.

I told
David that he was the reason I decided to become a Reform rabbi. Many orthodox
rabbis would consider this a failure, but not David.

… I’m
proud that in 2004, at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion,
Rabbi David Ellenson bestowed an honorary doctorate upon Rabbi Hartman. We
wanted him to know, then and always, how much we could not imagine our Reform
Jewish world without him.

Hartman's
name is identified with the Orthodox renewal movement in the past generation:
He adhered to halakha (Jewish religious law) while also promoting pluralistic
and liberal values. He supported the revolution of Torah studies for women and
encouraged joint study and debate among people of ranging outlooks who were
affiliated with various denominations both in and outside of Judaism.

His zeal embraced life
in all its messiness, revealing his love of the ongoing Jewish tradition rooted
in the Bible and Talmud, consecrated in the shtetl, now alive at the Hartman
Institute in Jerusalem and many other venues of Jewish disputation, wherein we
confront the text, each other, ourselves, and our God.

Hartman established
the Shalom Hartman Institute in 1976, named after his father, and developed an
approach that departed from more traditionally conservative Orthodoxy.Through the educational institutions he founded,
Hartman sought to create a pluralistic Jewish outlook designed to provide
answers for the challenges facing contemporary Judaism.

The Shalom Hartman
Institute – where Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist rabbis
of both genders can collaborate and cross-fertilize – embodies the
post-modernist, post-denominational era in which we live. It is reflected in
phenomena such as Shira Hadasha, a synagogue that Hartman supported that
defines itself as Orthodox while striving for gender equality, including women leading
prayers and reading from the Torah.